Friday, October 30, 2015

Digital Bridge Holdings Co-Founder/CEO Marc Ganzi says the future of DAS
is now. The swashbuckling tower titan told a HetNetExpo2015 audience in
Los Angeles this week that DAS and small cells will be the focus of
carrier investment next year and beyond and “the total market will
increase five times by 2020.” RCRWireless quoted him as saying “As we turn the page into 2016, we believe all four carriers will be investing next year.”
He’s figuring that Verizon Wireless will deploy as many as 60,000 new
nodes in the upcoming months while he pegs the number at 40,000 for
AT&T. Ganzi also predicts T-Mobile also will jump on the bandwagon
and Sprint likely will follow. Either way, figures Ganzi, carriers will
have to densify their networks to keep up with fast-growing consumer
demand.

Thursday, October 29, 2015

Congress needs to put “pedal to the
metal” and remove any obstacles the federal government might have placed
in the way of speeding delivering of broadband service nationwide, Rep.
Fred Upton (R-MI) told the House Subcommittee on Communications and
Technology yesterday. The committee was in session in the Rayburn House
Office Building for another in its series of “Breaking Down Barriers to
Broadband Infrastructure Deployment.”

Fellow committee member Rep. Anna
Eshoo (D-CA) stressed the importance of getting broadband service “to
the unserved and underserved in our country.” She also took a moment to
push the “Dig Once” legislation she, Upton and fellow committee member
Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) co-sponsored last week that requires broadband
to be installed along all new federal highway projects as “just common
sense. It will save taxpayers money.”

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Congress is now giving a closer look
at a device that mimics a cell tower to spy on cell phones after two
federal agencies said they will require a warrant to used the tool
called a StingRay. The Department of Justice and the Department of
Homeland Security have both recently said they will require warrants to
use the devices and on Oct. 21, the House Oversight subcommittee heard testimony from Seth Stodder,
an assistant secretary at Homeland Security. The day before the
hearing, Homeland Security issued a detailed memo outlining guidelines
for using StingRays but critics are still pushing for tighter control
over the devices.Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who has
previously pressed for answers on the technology, said the legal memo
was a positive first step, but pointed to “problematic” exceptions,
according to TheHill newspaper.

Friday, October 23, 2015

Hoping to create fertile ground to spawn 5G mobile
service, the FCC yesterday proposed new rules for the wireless broadband
in the wireless frequencies above 24Ghz.

The FCC wants to create “new flexible use service rules in
the 28 GHz, 37 GHz, 39 GHz, and 64-71 GHz bands” and to make these
bands available using “a variety of authorization schemes, including
traditional wide area licensing, unlicensed, and a shared approach that
provides access for both local area and wide area networks.”

“The FCC is taking steps to unlock the mobile broadband and
unlicensed potential of spectrum at the frontier above 24 GHz,” the
agency said in a statement announcing the proposal. “It was previously
assumed physical and tech limitations could not support mobile service
in these bands. New tech developments may allow the use of these high
frequencies for mobile applications – like 5G service – with
significantly more capacity and faster speeds for next generation mobile
service.”
Continue reading here.

Thursday, October 22, 2015

The FCC has fined Anchorage, Alaska-based General Communications, Inc.
$620,000 for failing to register 118-towers and for failing to properly
light three of them to comply with flight safety rules. A settlement was
reached and announced late Tuesday (October 20) by the FCC in
Washington.
The wireless, Internet and phone company’s wholly-owned tower
subsidiary, The Alaska Wireless Network, reported to the FCC in early
2014 that it discovered numerous apparent violations of the tower
registration requirements, including for many towers that it had
recently acquired. A subsequent investigation by the FCC’s Wireless
Bureau showed that about 118 communications towers had not been
registered in the Antenna Structure Registration system and that three
towers did not meet lighting requirements.

Thursday, October 1, 2015

Some are calling Sprint’s decision to sit out the 2016 incentive auction its biggest mistake since trying to buy T-Mobile. The company cited its reasoning as prioritizing financial resources to improve network coverage, capacity, speed and reliability in the near future. TheStreet reported that Sprint’s stock dropped after the announcement because investors believe the company will be deprived of future network upgrades without this spectrum. On Monday when the market opened, Sprint shares fell 7.3% to $3.98.

Brian Fung of The Washington Post explained that this spectrum which operates at frequencies of 600 MHz should make our cellular data faster and better able to handle intensive applications like streaming music and video. Many have called these frequencies “beach-front property,” and the auction has been dubbed a “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity. Continue reading here.

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Inside Towers is written for the wireless tower industry. There is plenty of news and information for wireless, but there is very little news targeted to towers specifically. There is no other available source of daily tower news and information written for the tower owners, managers, and supporting businesses.